3 Dog Days: 2nd Dottie CDX Attempt

Last weekend we headed down to Long Beach for our second CDX attempt. The obedience was in a separate building, the Long Beach Arena. Cool venue. Pie was also entered for a UDX attempt.

The first day she did her down signal! Finally! I had been throwing the down signal throughout the day in the house each day, so maybe that helped. However, she was still very barky, did not sit in front with the glove, and wiggled a lot on the stand. We got NQed on the stand, and the judge said we might have pointed out on the rest. She qualified in open, did the groups perfect, and got an open q. Which is nice, but doesn't do much for us. She was fairly barky and had a 176.

As I was walking into the utility ring, the steward came up to me and told me it was Dottie's turn. The utility steward verbally chastized me for holding up the utility ring as I stopped to point out to the open steward I was in the other ring. Apparently they held the open ring for me, and didn't just have someone else go. As soon as I came out with Pie, the open steward pounced on me and told me I had to take Dottie in. So, the only warm up she got was as we ran to the ring. Not surprisingly, she was horrible. Her heeling was very inattentive and she sniffed the baby gates. She did do all of the exercises, except the drop on recall. I realized later I used my high pitched "come" voice when I said "down." Usually I use a low pitched voice for the down. Sure, she should do it anyway, but I know Dottie especially listens a lot to tone. The groups were perfect. Besides not getting a warm up, I also failed to walk Dottie around the rings and let her look at the surroundings. I was concerned with Pie, since she went in first.

After our not so grand attempts, we went shopping at the vendors and got some supplements. The show went very late, I was there until about 3.

After the show, we went out to dinner for older younger brother's birthday. He is 28.

The next day Pie was much more quiet in utility. This weekend I jumped Pie at 22 since she is 23 inches tall according to her agility jump height card. Usually I jump her 24 since that is her agility jump height, but we were right in the middle of a group of 22 inch dogs so I put her at 22 inches. Today, the utility judge measured everyone. Weird! When it was Pie's turn, he put the wicket up next to her (which she actually found to be somewhat odd) then used a pen across her shoulders and eyeballed the location. He didn't look at it at eye level, and the since it just a pen, it wasn't locked into a flat position. After measuring her, he said "Leash Please!" and sent me out of the ring. I thought maybe I was getting excused! But he put the jumps up to 24 inches then called me back in. Of course Pie can jump 24 inches, but I was embarrassed, as if I was caught trying to cheat! I was just going off her agility height card, which is measured by 2 different, trained judges, and is on a table at eye level, with a wicket that is fixed in a horizontal line. So I feel as if he measured incorrectly. But oh well. Other than the embarrassment, it wasn't a problem.

Pie did her down signal again and was much more quiet than yesterday. She seemed happy. On the stand for exam, she stayed a little better, but then walked out of it and into heel position!!!! Darn, darn, darn! So, so close.

Dottie was next and this time I walked her around the ring before Pie's turn. We also didn't have a conflict today. I had a really good warm up with her. I don't use toys or treats before we go in so she doesn't miss them as soon as we go in. We played lots with just me poking and letting her jump and mouth my arm. We practiced heeling with chasing and jumping. I do let her tug on the dumbbell because that is with us in the ring!

We went into the ring in sync. Her heeling was attentive and fairly precise. Great individual exercises. On the retrieve over high, it bounded off to the side, but we've proofed for that and she did a great job. The most amazing thing is she had a perfect score on both the retrieve over the high AND the broad jump!! I've never had a perfect broad jump before. Possibly the same for high jump. Again the groups were perfect. We got first place with at 196.5. I am so happy with that score!

I think with good warm ups, baring unseen circumstances, we should pass in the future. CDX, here we come! (Now I've jinxed us for sure!)

Pie's turn in open also went well. Pie had the best heeling she's had probably ever, and we got a 189.5. Also our best score in a while. Her warm up is to play with a toy a lot. I was happy she did her groups so nicely both days.

As a bonus we got out of there much earlier.

While walking around between times in the ring, I found this random hole in the wall. My dogs know the command, "What's in there?"